As established by various studies, it is recognized that cholesterol and triglycerides play a major role in the formation of atherosclerotic plaques by accelerating the deposition of blood lipids in the arterial walls. Hypercholesterolemia, i.e. elevated cholesterol levels of the blood, has been the cause of special concern, and agents having hypocholesterolemic activity are used in the treatment of atherosclerosis. See U.S. Pat. No. 3,262,850.
Various benzylaminobenzoic acid derivatives have been described as having hypolipidemic activity, i.e. hypocholesterolemic and hypotriglyceridemic activity. See Dutch publication No. 7,602,332. Surprisingly the adjacent homologues of the known hypolipidemic compounds, i.e. benzylamino benzeneethanoic acids, although active as hypotriglyceridemic agents are not effective in lowering the cholesterol levels in the blood. For this reason it is particularly surprising that the class of compounds described herein are active hypocholesterolemic agents.